


Snake in the Grass

by FloaromaMeadow



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, mashing dub and sub canon together because i can
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 00:35:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10775796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloaromaMeadow/pseuds/FloaromaMeadow
Summary: On the day he found out that the software he developed for games would be used as a tool of war, Seto lost all respect for Gozaburo Kaiba.But up until that moment, he still thought of him as his father.





	Snake in the Grass

It’s impossible to ignore the past while he’s still living it, so Seto gets good at rationalization.

Someday, when he’s older, he’ll think about scars. He’ll frame his pain as “the scars of defeat,” and he’ll tell himself that he’d burn the world to the ground if it would make those scars just a little easier to live with. He’s speaking metaphorically, of course. But sometimes he wonders if it would be easier, in a twisted way, if he wasn’t.

But that’s in the future, after everything is over (not gone, not really, but at least he’ll have the luxury of some distance). Right now it’s not over. Right now he’s small and trapped and running calculations in his head.

Gozaburo doesn’t hit him. He throws things, sometimes, but nothing heavy enough to hurt, just small things, stress balls and crumpled-up memos and paperweights, to startle him, make him flinch. And that’s…not so bad, right? It could be worse.

Anyway, he never hits Seto. And if sometimes a meaty fist slams into the sleek mahogany wood of Gozaburo’s desk with enough force that Seto can suddenly vividly imagine that fist slamming into something else…well…

_He has a reputation to uphold_ , the cynicism coiled in his chest sometimes whispers to him late at night. _Of course he’s not gonna let his kid walk around with a black eye. It’d look bad on the evening news._

But that can’t be the only reason Gozaburo holds back. Still, Seto counts up what few marks he does find on his skin with something strangely like relief. He takes mental snapshots of the red welts on the back of his hand where the switch came down and the purple finger-shaped bruises on his shoulder where Gozaburo squeezed until he had to bite his tongue to strangle a yelp, tallies them up in his head like evidence. Except they’re no good as evidence. They fade so fast that even he can barely believe they were ever real.

He loses his faith in his own perceptions and never quite gets it back. Eventually it’s easier to just pretend that his eyes and ears are lying, that the monsters are all fake.

Whatever. It’s fine. He’s fine.

Anyway, if he’s this bothered by such little things, insignificant things, like exactingly strict expectations or never knowing if his most prized possessions will still be there when he gets back to his room or the disappointed rumble in his father’s chest that never softens into anything more satisfied, then maybe he really is weak ( _pathetic, a waste of money and space, a bad investment, a spineless dog, a loser_ ). Maybe this is his chance to get stronger.

Gozaburo teaches him things. Important things. Lessons.

(There’s poison in Seto’s veins by now, singing through his blood and whispering hatred in a voice that sounds like his own, and it will take so much time and so much work to even notice the poison is there, much less to start the painful process of flushing it out.)

Gozaburo ignores Mokuba, mostly. Looks at him a little blankly sometimes, like it takes him a moment to remember who this kid is and what he’s doing here. As much as it makes Seto’s blood boil—doesn’t he see how amazing Mokuba is, how smart and strong and resilient and _good_ , how could he not see, how could _anyone_ not see?—it’s probably for the best.

“I don’t like him,” Mokuba had whispered that first night. They had their very own rooms now, not just a couple of rickety cots pushed together in a big open space that buzzed with the rustling and muttering and tossing and turning of other people, but that hadn’t stopped Mokuba from padding across the hall and worming his way under his brother’s covers anyway. “I know he’s our dad now, and I know we’re ‘sposed to be a family, but…”

“ _We’re_ a family,” Seto had told him, pulling Mokuba’s small little frame snug against his chest. “You and me. And as for him—” _Grownups aren’t trustworthy, grownups leave, grownups lie._ “He’s rich. Powerful. He was our ticket out of the orphanage, and things are gonna be better now. I promise.”

On nights when Seto’s eyes blur so bad that the words in his textbook turn into an inky soup on the page, he prays that he didn’t tell his baby brother a lie.

But as long as it’s not Mokuba going through this…as long as it’s just him…he can handle it. He can be strong, he can work hard, he can _prove_ to Gozaburo that he wasn’t a mistake. Because that’s the point of all this, right? Gozaburo saw something in him that day at the orphanage. He must have, or he would have laughed in that scrawny orphan’s face and ignored his meager little bet and walked away. He must have seen someone worthy of running Kaiba Corporation, and Seto will prove his father right no matter what it takes.

So he works hard. He works until his hand cramps into a claw around his pencil and then goes clumsy with exhaustion and turns his notes into chicken scratch he won’t be able to read in the morning. He works until the numbers stop looking like numbers and the words stop sounding like words and a dull pain squeezes and squeezes at his temples and only the sharp sting of the switch can call him back from his haze. He works until, when his tutor finally permits him to leave, he blacks out a little when he tries to stand.

He’ll win this game if it kills him.

As long as it’s just him…as long as it’s just him…

But then he’s standing in his father’s office with rigid shoulders drawn up to his ears and casualty estimates running through his head and ashes in his mouth and it’s _not_ just him, and his carefully-constructed tower of justifications crumbles to pieces.


End file.
